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confessed.
    ‘You look the same,’ he said, appraising her openly. ‘And the Villa Severus is the same, although it is now an hotel.’
    ‘That was necessary when your—when Papa died,’ Dorothy said, looking away from his questioning eyes. ‘But we will not talk about that now that you are here. You will stay, of course, at least for a meal with us.’
    He hesitated, looking across the stretch of parquet to where Anna still stood beside the lounge windows.
    ‘Why not?’ he agreed. ‘We have much to talk about.’ Anna flushed scarlet. She had no intention of discussing the past, if that was what he was suggesting, and she was half-angry with her mother for asking him to share their meal.
    ‘I’ll get some coffee,’ she offered. ‘Would you like to take it on the loggia?’
    She had pointed the question at her mother, determined to ignore him, but Andreas was not to be intimidated.
    ‘Let me help you,’ he volunteered. ‘I can carry a tray.’
    ‘There is no need,’ she told him. ‘Paris is still with us— and Hannibal.’
    ‘Hanny must be a good age now,’ he mused, following her to the kitchen in spite of her objection. ‘Thirty, if he’s a day.’
    ‘Thirty-two,’ Anna acknowledged. ‘He and Paris are very loyal servants and we appreciate the fact.’
    ‘You were lucky to have them when you needed them. How long is it since—your father died?’
    ‘Five years. We had to make our decision about the house immediately and we wanted to keep it so—here we are!’
    She had tried to sound matter-of-fact, although her voice had faltered a little as she remembered that moment of decision which had saved the villa as their home.
    ‘It was the only way,’ she said.
    He followed her through the swing doors into the kitchen where two young girls were busy at the sinks, looking about him at the alterations they had made, the concessions to hotel catering which had been necessary to transform the homely old kitchen he remembered into an efficient unit for its present purpose.
    'It must have cost you a lot,’ he remarked with true Cypriot candour. Anna stiffened. ‘In more ways than one,’ she admitted, ‘but it was what we had to do to survive.’
    ‘I know how Mama must have felt.’
    She faced him angrily. ‘You couldn’t have known!’ she declared. ‘Otherwise, you would never have left as you did or stayed away so long.’
    ‘We’re back to the letter again,’ he said as the two maids left the kitchen. ‘You refuse to believe that I tried.’
    ‘We haven’t any proof.’
    He laughed a little harshly. ‘Is that what you need, Anna? Absolute proof of everything?’
    ‘I prefer to believe the facts. My mother never had your letter and no matter what it contained it could never have softened the blow of your desertion.’ She filled the coffee jug, her hands shaking over the task. ‘If you had explained before you went off as you did it might have helped as far as she was concerned.’
    ‘But not with you?’ He watched her automatic movements with the filter. ‘I’m not here to apologise, as you said before. Only to offer help.’
    She spun round to confront him face to face. ‘And what does that mean?’ she demanded. ‘Perhaps you have come with the idea that you can buy your way back into our affections. Or is that too conceited a suggestion on my part?’ She drew a deep breath. ‘You evidently don’t feel the need for forgiveness.’
    He continued to look at her, faint surprise mirrored in his eyes. ‘I have asked for it where I need it most,’ he said blandly. ‘Your mother is prepared to accept my return without rancour. Why can’t you?’
    ‘Because ’ She watched the coffee filtering through the paper, unable to offer him any real explanation of the way she felt. ‘Because it was a betrayal and I can’t think of it as anything else.’
    ‘If I had still been here when your father died I couldn’t have done very much about it,’ he pointed out reasonably